LHASA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The State Grid's Tibet branch announced that 25,000 more people in the plateau region will be covered by the main power grid by the end of this year.

In 2019, Tibet plans to build 140 electric substations of 35 kilovolts and above and 7,000 km of power transmission lines as the region continues to expand and upgrade its electricity infrastructure.

By the end of 2018, 2.76 million people in 63 counties, or over 80 percent of Tibet's population, were covered by the main power grid, thanks to an investment of 8.89 billion yuan (about 1.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the year.

If the plan goes well, the figure will rise to 66 counties by the end of 2019.

A 16.2-billion-yuan power interconnection project was put into operation in Tibet last November, linking the region with the national grid network for the first time.